Li Williams / Full360 Staff Writer

In just a few short days, Delaware Valley University will be setting up its display at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

One recent day on campus, students were painting backdrops, while a professor and another student drilled holes to fasten parts of the display together. Another student headed out to the greenhouse to water and prep the plants for their journey. 

Landscape Architecture Professor, Howard Eyre, describes the preparations as “mass chaos.”

Eyre has been with the University for 33 years and has been helping prepare the University for the Philadelphia Flower Show every year.

Mike Fleischacker, Landscape Architecture Program Administrator, paints a picture of what the display will look like this year, with the overall flower show theme being The Garden Electric.

Fleischacker said Delaware Valley University’s theme for its display is aimed at educating people on natural energies.  

“It is inspired by Pennsylvania woodlands,” Fleischacker said. “We’re going to include cascading waters and streams and a pond with fish in it. We have aquatic plants, herbaceous annuals and perennials. We have shrubs and trees and ornamental trees.” 

“We want people to come in and feel our exhibit,” he said. 

Garden Electric is not just about power. 

“It’s about emotions. We want people to be surprised when they enter the portal from the outside and not expecting to walk into what we hope to be  a wonderful woodland garden.”

He detailed what the experience should be like: 

“On the outside of our exhibit, in the main hallway, it is…deceiving. We are going to have a big mural up there and this electric blue light pattern, sort of abstract mural that is going on, on the outside, and then you have to walk through, what I like to call a portal into our exhibit. Once you enter the portal you are transported into our lush woodland garden setting, where we have cascading water, streams, little ponds with fish in it, and aquatic plants. Really vibrant colors of blues, pinks, whites, and purples.”

The students and faculty working on 2023 Flower Show Design/Build included Horticulture student Kayla Bauman, Landscape Architecture student Braden Gobrecht, Landscape Design/Build student Eddie Campbell, and Landscape Design/build student Nick Forsyth. Faculty members include Fleischacker and Eyre.

When asked what the most exciting part of getting ready for the flower show was, Bauman said, “Being able to work with other people, seeing everyone work on it, seeing how far it comes every time. It’s crazy, one person does this and you come in the next day and it looks completely different.”